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Henrietta looked up at the sky, filled with dark clouds and pouring rain. She looked down at herself, a pitiful creature, helpless before an enemy beyond understanding. She could feel Them closing in, like sharks circling prey, like vultures following death. Fear began to chill her body, even more profoundly than the cool rain. She was scared. Not just of them, but of the end of her journey. Once her running was ended, that was it. She'd never run again.
Shaking her head, she tried to get up, spurred by a last vestige of faltering hope. Her body refused to cooperate, so consigned to it's fate it was. She wanted to move, but she couldn't. Starting to panic, her eyes darted around her, looking for something, anything. Finally, she remembered her heirloom. It was just a small brooch she had gotten. She couldn't even remember who she had received it from, but she knew it was important. With shaking hands, she undid the pin, and stared at the bright silver point.
She closed her eyes, and lashed out with it, driving the needle into her own leg. The pain tore through her mind like the ever-present lightning, and a red flower bloomed on her leg. She felt the pain, there was no doubt about that. She could feel the pain, and through it, she could feel herself. She bit back a sob, and focused on the pain, enveloping it in her mind, accepting it. Getting to her feet, she tried to step away from the tree. She almost fell over, as if she had lost her sense of balance. Not really lost, more like changed. The pain had opened her eyes, so to speak. She could feel everything much clearer, as if she had her head within the clouds up until now. Her blood trickled down her leg, creating red rivulets that ran down to the ground, to mingle with the rain and tears that had already soaked into the earth.
Through eyes filled with tears and raindrops, she ran. Jerkily, as her injured leg protested such use, but eventually she found her rhythm, and tried to ignore the burning in her leg. She left the brooch where it lay, on the ground, abandoned. And she ran. The road she was on was continually regressing, getting less and less formalized. It was still paved, but then it gave way to cobblestones, and then to a simple stretch of bare ground, and then, finally, to a narrow pathway that led deeper into the forest. She never hesitated, but continued to run, thorn bushes and low branches tearing at her with a subtle mind that was still there.
No matter how fast she moved, They always managed to keep pace with her, even though they never ran. No, they continued walking at their same rate, casually moving forward with grim intent. Soon after, they reached her abandoned brooch, the blood still shining on it's tip. One of them reached down to touch it, and as soon as they did, it dimmed, growing paler and paler, as if it were being leached of it's color. Soon, nothing remained of it at all, not even a disturbance on the ground to show where it had once been. They continued, growing ever nearer. They would never stop.